... he grows worse from having power: he becomes and is of necessity more jealous, more faithless, more unjust, more friendless, more impious, than he was at first; he is the purveyor and cherisher of every sort of vice, and the consequence is that he is supremely miserable, and that he makes everybody else as miserable as himself. ...
-- Plato, Republic IX
But what about the welders, Marco?
And even today's Greeks know that Western law is far more Roman than it is Greek.
Marco is what the Athenians would have called a spermologos:
Some also of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers met Paul. And some said, "What would this babbler say?"
-- Acts 17:18
The MAGA boobeoisie is taking Marco seriously, which is even funnier than Marco himself, but he's still trending way behind International Lesbian Day.
... "Many people are surprised to learn that the most commonly cited author in the Federalist Papers was not an Enlightenment philosopher or political theorist. The most commonly cited author in the Federalist Papers was Plutarch," Rubio said. "Athens gave us democracy. Plato and Aristotle gave us Western philosophy. Our ideas of law, of virtue, of citizenship and republic and government were shaped in the Greek city-states." ...
This Is the Best 'Hard Goods' Boom in Decades
... Tuesday’s industrial production report showed back-to-back gains in June and July for both total production and manufacturing production. ...
Larry is rightly happy about the increase in the durable manufacturing index.
No doubt about it, it is up, but notice that it is still not as high as it was in Trump 2018 or Obama 2014.
More importantly, percent change in the index for 1H2026 was 1.94, lower than the 2.28 in 1H2018 when Trump was president the first time.
But this isn't an economic boom, and neither was that.
Those are welcome highpoints but in a long-term trend all down hill since the 1980s when Reagan was president, and no one asks why.
Kudlow & Co. never go back in the data as far as they should, even though they served in the Reagan Revolution and touted the results for the economy of the posthumous JFK tax cut in the Revenue Act of 1964, which cut the top marginal rate from 91% to 70%.
Today they use these data sets which go back only to the beginning of 1972, but even at that there is a giant durable goods growth spike of 9.02% in 2H1983 which we have been unable to reproduce since then, which should make them ask themselves, What went wrong?, but it doesn't.
Socrates said that the unexamined life isn't worth living.
So let's examine it.
Robust post-war growth is a truism which is true!
Industrial production generally, and for manufacturing specifically, grew robustly year over year, and the trend for those growth rates was itself strongly positive, as the chart for 1948 to 1984 shows.
But look at what happens after 1984.
You still get positive growth rates year over year, but not as robust as before, and the trend for those growth rates becomes strongly negative.
Something changed in the 1980s to cause this.
I say it's the Reagan Revolution in ordinary income tax rate reductions which caused this, not because tax cuts for rich people is bad, but because Reagan unintentionally sabotaged the tax rate arbitrage which before those tax cuts existed had pushed rich people for decades to make long term capital investments here at home in order to get low capital gains taxes in return.
In other words, Reagan destroyed the negative incentives which drove domestic investment. Take away the penalty of high ordinary income tax rates, and suddenly there's no reason to plow your money into the investments which drive business, jobs, and GDP, especially as enthusiasm for regulations of all kinds began to grow and hamstring profits.
The new tax cut windfalls freed up a lot of money to seek return wherever it could be found, and in the aftermath of the Reagan era that money increasingly went abroad. For people who lived through it, the one persistent theme of the business news was one business after another closing up shop in America and moving production overseas. After China entered the WTO, the steady departure of businesses from America became a flood.
And that's why that last chart, for 1984 to the present, looks like hell.
It has nothing to do with the U.S. Dollar being the world's reserve currency either. That is the dumbest thing I've heard in years, and I can't tell you how amusing that is coming out of the mouth of a Yalie. I guess they don't teach 'em at Yale that the dollar was the world's reserve currency 1948-1984.
I am not an economist. I do not know how to wave a magic wand of policy to make it all right again.
I am just a scholar in the humanities who wanted to know what turned my world upside down in 2007 and why I and millions like me have never recovered.
I have made a life for myself in spite of it all, as people do, but I tell you what, America was pretty great once, so don't tell me this is an economic boom.
I knew the economic boom. The economic boom was a friend of mine. And Larry, this isn't an economic boom.
The tyrant is the real slave. He is mastered by a whole host of conflicting desires, none of which he is therefore able to in any way satisfy.
Trump proposes 20% toll on cargo through Strait of Hormuz; restarts Iran blockade
President Donald Trump on Monday said the U.S. will impose fees in the Strait of Hormuz “at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped,” after declaring America’s role as the “guardian” of the major oil-shipping route. ... Trump’s post asserts that commercial vessels attempting the transit must now pay protection money to the U.S. ...
“The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,’” he claimed. “But as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World.”
“The process and formation will begin immediately,” he added. ...
This was published just over ten years ago. It's still up there, for all the world to see.
Way back in January, long before the first women attended the Army’s elite Ranger School – one of the most grueling military courses in the world – officials at the highest levels of the Army had already decided failure was not an option, sources tell PEOPLE.
“A woman will graduate Ranger School,” a general told shocked subordinates this year while preparing for the first females to attend a “gender integrated assessment” of the grueling combat leadership course starting April 20, sources tell PEOPLE. “At least one will get through.”
That directive set the tone for what was to follow, sources say.
“It had a ripple effect” at Fort Benning, where Ranger School is based, says a source with knowledge of events at the sprawling Georgia Army post. “Even though this was supposed to be just an assessment, everyone knew. The results were planned in advance.”
On Tuesday, PEOPLE revealed that Oklahoma Republican Rep. Steve Russell had asked the Department of Defense for documents about the women who attended Ranger School after becoming concerned that “the women got special treatment and played by different rules,” sources say.
Ranger School consists of three phases: Benning, which lasts 21 days and includes water survival, land navigation, a 12-mile march, patrols, and an obstacle course; Mountain Phase, which lasts 20 days, and includes assaults, ambushes, mountaineering and patrols; and Swamp Phase, which lasts 17 days and covers waterborne operations.
But whereas men consistently were held to the strict standards outlined in the Ranger School’s Standing Operating Procedures handbook sources say, the women were allowed lighter duties and exceptions to policy.
Multiple sources told PEOPLE:
• Women were first sent to a special two-week training in January to get them ready for the school, which didn’t start until April 20. Once there they were allowed to repeat the program until they passed – while men were held to a strict pass/fail standard.
• Afterward they spent months in a special platoon at Fort Benning getting, among other things, nutritional counseling and full-time training with a Ranger.
• While in the special platoon they were taken out to the land navigation course – a very tough part of the course that is timed – on a regular basis. The men had to see it for the first time when they went to the school.
• Once in the school they were allowed to repeat key parts – like patrols – while special consideration was not given to the men.
• A two-star general made personal appearances to cheer them along during one of the most challenging parts of the school, multiple sources tell PEOPLE.
The end result? Two women – First Lts. Kristen Griest and Shaye Haver – graduated August 21 (along with 381 men) and are wearing the prestigious Ranger Tab. Griest was surprised they made it.
“I thought we were going to be dropped after we failed Darby [part of Benning] the second time,” Griest said at a press conference before graduation. “We were offered a Day One Recycle.”
At their graduation, Maj Gen. Scott Miller, who oversees Ranger School, denied the Army eased its standards or was pressured to ensure at least one woman graduated.
“Standards remain the same, Miller said, according to The Army Times. “The five-mile run is still five miles. The 12-mile march is still 12 miles.
“There was no pressure from anyone above me to change standards,” said Miller, who declined to speak to PEOPLE.
Instructors say otherwise.
“We were under huge pressure to comply,” one Ranger instructor says. “It was very much politicized.”
The women didn’t want or ask for special treatment, says one who attempted the program.
“All of us wanted the same standards for males and females,” Billi Blaschke, who badly injured her ankle only six days into a required pre-assessment program, tells PEOPLE. “We wanted to do it on our own.”
On September 2, the Army announced that Ranger School is now open both to men and women.
Women are not currently allowed to perform Ranger duties, even Lts. Griest and Haver who passed the course. However, the Army will be forced to open Ranger positions to females on January 1, unless the Secretary of Defense grants an exception.
If the exemption isn’t granted, the Army may send women into combat – which is why so many former and current Rangers are concerned about women being held to the same standards as men.
“Combat is brutal and unforgiving,” says Jim Lechner, a retired Army officer and Ranger who was wounded in combat in Mogadishu, Somalia, during the famed “Black Hawk Down” incident. “Fighters must be prepared and capable. If they are not, people will die.”
Ranger School teaches students how to overcome fatigue, hunger and stress to lead soldiers in small-unit combat operations.
“I remain unconvinced that the recent graduation of two female soldiers was a proper test of females’ ability to perform in combat,” Lechner tells PEOPLE.
While Griest and Haver could not be reached for comment, the Army insists the two women who graduated August 21 did so under their own steam.
“In order to successfully graduate Ranger School, all students, male and female, are required to meet all course standards,” Army spokesman LTC Jennifer Johnson tells PEOPLE.
“The course standards for Ranger Class 08-15 are the exact same standards that have been used for all other Ranger classes,” she says.
The women got special treatment from the start, sources tell PEOPLE.
Though the course didn’t begin until April 20, the first female Ranger candidates arrived at Fort Benning in January to attend the National Guard’s rigorous Ranger Training and Assessment Course (RTAC), a two-week program designed to assess whether a student could attempt the 62-day Ranger School.
Previously, only the National Guard’s Ranger hopefuls were required to attend RTAC, while non-Guard candidates had the elective option to attend. Now, all females – no matter whether they were Guard, Reserve or Regular Army – were required to attend.
There they were given another edge, sources say: While men were held to a stark pass-fail standard, women were allowed to redo the special training repeatedly.
“That was the first special concession,” says an Army source with knowledge of what transpired. “Males do not recycle RTAC. They either cut it or not.”
Neither Gen. Miller nor Fort Benning responded to questions asking about allegations of altered standards.
Approximately 140 women went through various cycles of the 14-day long RTAC. Many left of their own volition. Others dropped out, sources say.
By the end of January, many were slated to begin Ranger school.
Then came the second round of special treatment, sources tell PEOPLE.
The males proceeded to Ranger School without further ado. The women got special training. They were placed into their own platoon and spent the next several weeks preparing for Ranger School, sources say.
They were given nutritional counseling and a soldier to train them full time. The soldier, Sergeant First Class Robert Hoffnagle, previously had competed in Fort Benning’s annual Best Ranger competition, touted as the “ultimate test of fitness, endurance and grit for the Army’s most elite soldiers.
The women “lived and breathed nothing but Ranger School 24/7,” a source tells PEOPLE. “He taught [them] everything, including how to do patrols.”
There they were also allowed to train and rehearse on Land Navigation.
“That right there was a special consideration that only was given to the women,” says a source with knowledge of events. “It’s not fair, on a lot of levels.”
In a response to questions that included a request for confirmation that the women were placed in the special platoon, Army spokesman Lt. Col. Ben Garrett said “the allegations are not true.”
However, other sources confirmed its existence to PEOPLE.
“Hoffnagle got us ready for Ranger School,” says a woman who attended the special platoon.
And other sources at Fort Benning tell PEOPLE they were present at meetings to discuss the platoon’s budget and how it would operate.
By April 20, 19 women and 381 men reported for Ranger School.
Within days, 11 women were dropped from the course because they failed either the physical training, land navigation, or road march portions, sources say.
“They were decimated on road march,” an instructor tells PEOPLE.
On May 7, less than three weeks into the course, a highly placed Army source told PEOPLE that no women remained in Ranger School.
Then something changed.
“The women were called in to see the general,” said the source, referencing Miller, who oversees Ranger School.
“He told them they could not quit – too much time and money had been devoted to bringing them here,” the source said.
Miller himself acknowledged he’d met with the women in a statement to The Washington Post, though he did not say what he told them, just that he was “impressed” that they wanted to continue, according to the newspaper.
On May 8, eight women were allowed to repeat the first phase.
Once again, the women failed, sources said. They stumbled on patrols.
“They were not aggressive enough,” a source with knowledge of events tells PEOPLE. “They made poor combat decisions.”
Patrols are a crucial element in Ranger School.
“If you fail patrols, it’s significant, because you don’t have what it takes,” says Bubba Moore, a former Ranger Instructor with close ties to the Ranger and Fort Benning communities. “People will get killed.”
In late May, with more failed events, commanders reassessed what to do with the women. Five women were sent back to their home units. Three were offered the chance to start Ranger School all over again, from the first day. They accepted the offer.
The three women again failed patrols during the first phase, sources say.
That’s when Gen. Miller himself arrived on the course, according to sources.
Fort Benning later acknowledged to PEOPLE that Miller had gone to the training grounds while the women were on the course. A Fort Benning spokesman said Miller went there to commemorate his 30th anniversary of attending Ranger School, and did not go to pressure instructors into passing the women.
Nevertheless, with Miller on scene, the women passed and progressed to the next phase.
“Was it undue command influence?” a source with knowledge of events tells PEOPLE. “No matter what the general intended to convey, the instructors had no choice but to take this to mean, ‘Play along.’ ”
“The instructors knew what they were expected to do,” the source says. “They did it.”
After the women continue to struggle, Miller showed up again, sources say. Two women passed and ultimately graduated on August 21.
Meanwhile, one woman from that same class, who has redone other phases repeatedly, just failed the Swamp Phase and is going to try it again, sources say.
Another group of women is set to begin Ranger School in November.
Late on the evening of Sept. 25, the Army released a statement from Brig. Gen. Malcom B. Frost, who is chief of the Army’s public affairs office, about the PEOPLE story and the allegations uncovered by PEOPLE reporter Susan Keating.
[Ms. Keating] claimed that women were allowed to repeat a Ranger training class until they passed, while men were held to a strict pass/fail standard,” the statement said. “That is false.
“She charged that women regularly practiced on Ranger School’s land navigation course while men saw it for the first time when they went to the school,” the statement said. “Again, false.
“She accused an Army general of calling female candidates together to tell them they could not quit the course. Yet again, false.
https://people.com/celebrity/female-rangers-were-given-special-treatment-sources-say/
All his life long he is beset with fear and is full of convulsions, and distractions, even as the State which he resembles.
-- Plato, Republic
Stephen Miller most hurt.
On Wednesday morning, President Trump took a call from Brooke Rollins, his secretary of agriculture, who relayed a growing sense of alarm from the heartland.
But the decision had been made. Later on Thursday, a senior official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Tatum King, sent an email to regional leaders at the agency informing them of new guidance. Agents were to “hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels.” ...
More.
Observe again how quickly Trump is to turn on a dime. The policy changed in less than 48 hours. The last person he talked to can be the most influential, which is not what you want from the leader of the free world. Sometimes he stumbles into the right decision, to be sure, but he can always stumble the wrong way. The tyrant's soul resembles the state which he rules, full of chaos and conflicting desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy.
Trump calls for scrapping debt limit (June 4)
Trump pushes Republicans to have rich pay more taxes (May 8)
Trump pivots, says GOP should ‘probably not’ raise taxes on rich (May 9)
Trump millionaire tax hike idea upends Republican political wisdom (May 10)
He belongs in a psych ward, not in The White House.
But our Orwellian Republicans put the cart before the horse.
You can't return to something which no longer exists. The net trade deficit for 2024 is nearly $1 trillion, instead of flat like during the post-war up until Reagan, who first ran in 1976 against Ford, when tariffs still had something to protect but we listened to the siren song of free-trade instead.
That is why the Trump administration has had to cast about for at least six different reasons for instituting tariffs at the present time, none of which are at all convincing otherwise there wouldn't be six of them, not to mention that the math used for them is preposterous, or that they are the farthest thing from reciprocal.
The real reason for them, however, is that the tariffs, like the executive orders which now number over 100, are the immediate strings available to our Puppet Master, which he can pull this way one day and that way another, your ever present reminder of who is in charge around here. Suck up to him and he'll make a deal.
Trump's White House laughably brags about these things.
New taxes, which is what these tariffs are, are liberating don't you see!
Our mad King Ludwig needs this constant adulation. The tyrant has desires which he can never fulfill, Plato warned us.
But of course all this can be undone by the next president, which is no way to run a country. It makes for deep institutional instability and distrust throughout the global economy, for which few can reasonably plan.
The message remains the same: Expect Kaos.
... Asked later that day whether Congress should weigh in on his widespread cuts, Musk responded, “Well, they do have a vote.” ... the administration has privately reassured GOP lawmakers, particularly House Republicans, that DOGE will continue to unilaterally rescind congressionally approved funding whether lawmakers are given the chance to weigh in or not. ...
Here.
Ordinarily after successfully pulling off such a deportation coup, which may or may not be legal, you would think Trump would be gloating, but you would be wrong.
Nothing is ever good enough. He is never satisfied. He is never secure.
What an absolutely contemptible lot.
GOP senators tell Musk DOGE actions will require their votes
Republican senators told tech billionaire Elon Musk at a closed-door meeting Wednesday that his aggressive moves to shrink the federal government will need a vote on Capitol Hill, sending a clear message that he needs to respect Congress’s power of the purse. ...
Paul and other Republican senators said Musk appeared open to the idea but didn’t seem to expect DOGE’s cuts and workforce reductions would need to come back to Congress for ultimate approval. ...
GOP lawmakers say Musk’s failure to brief them in advance about impending cuts and funding freezes — or to respond to their questions and concerns about actions taken by DOGE — reflected his belief that he thought the administration could largely bypass them by simply impounding funds lawfully appropriated by Congress. ...
Several GOP senators vented their frustrations over Musk’s operating
style — especially his team’s failure to respond promptly to their
concerns — at a meeting last week with White House chief of staff Susie
Wiles.
Wiles told frustrated senators they should contact her directly with their concerns over funding freezes and reductions in force pushed by Musk and his team of young engineers.
Sources familiar with Wednesday’s meeting said the GOP senators who complained about Musk and his methods last week were much more cordial when they met with him face-to-face in the wood-empaneled Mansfield Room just off the Senate floor. ...
“I showed up in the 101st Airborne Division, in one of the most storied units in our nation’s history, with a bunch of combat vets who’d already done a tour in Iraq and they looked at me like, ‘Who the hell is this guy?’” Hegseth said in a 2021 interview on “The Will Cain Show” podcast.
One former officer who served with Hegseth said he was surprised to see a National Guard member taking on such a role. He surmised that Hegseth probably wanted to run for office someday and thought a combat tour could help, the former officer said. ...
The former Army officer who served with Hegseth in Iraq said he believes he has latched on to “populist scenarios” in a quest for personal gain. When news of Hegseth’s potential nomination emerged, old acquaintances from those days got back in touch with one another, the former officer said.
One text he received especially stood out. All it said: “WTF?”
More.
"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy."
If a man is not a master of himself, however, he will be a slave . . . to his passions, which include the desire to rule others.
In The War Between The States we exchanged the one tyranny over the Negro for a still more universal and thorough-going tyranny of the self.
The only free man who exists is the one who can say No to himself.
Daniel J. Flynn, here:
As described in this column previously, Pavel Sudoplatov, so high-ranking that the Soviets placed him in charge of murdering Leon Trotsky, maintained in his autobiography that “Oppenheimer supplied … the Soviet Union with crucial information for it to successfully test its own atomic bomb in 1949.” He details Oppenheimer’s role, “which included allowing moles access to secret data to copy it, and describes him as ‘knowingly part of the scheme.’”
Material from the files of both Soviet and U.S. intelligence supports Sudoplatov’s claim: “An Oct. 2, 1944, memo from the Soviet archives, signed in receipt by chief of secret police Lavrentiy Beria, identifies Oppenheimer as a ‘member of the apparatus of Comrade [Earl] Browder’ who ‘provided cooperation in access to research for several of our tested sources including a relative of [the Communist Party USA leader].’”
Venona project decrypts refer to Oppenheimer under a codename, monikers in most but not all circumstances reserved for Soviet assets. A decoded March 1945 intercept “instructs Soviet agents to ‘re-establish contact with “Veskel” … as soon as possible.’ Veskel, the National Security Administration determined conclusively, referred to Oppenheimer.”
In The Venona Secrets, late authors Herb Romerstein and Eric Breindel wrote: “In May [of 1945] the Rezidentura sent Moscow another report from [Theodore] Hall on atom bomb research. It revealed the locations of work being done and the names of the heads of each research group. All of the names were clearly written out except one, that of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was listed as ‘Veskel,’ the head of Los Alamos.”
Oppenheimer’s critics lacked this information in 1954, so one better understands their restrained classification of him as merely a security risk rather than charging that he lacked, in the words of President Dwight Eisenhower’s Executive Order 10450, a “complete and unswerving loyalty to the United States.” What’s the excuse of the NBC News Studios documentary airing on MSNBC for omitting so much information from credible sources in the U.S. and U.S.S.R. intelligence apparatus painting a grim picture of Oppenheimer’s trustworthiness? ...
Oppenheimer donated large sums to Communist causes, subscribed to Communist publications, and married a Communist. Other associates in the party included his brother, sister-in-law, landlady, the girlfriend who later became his mistress, and numerous students. He attended secret meetings of Communist professors while teaching at Berkeley.
Most damning of all, Haakon Chevalier, a friend and professor at Berkeley, approached Oppenheimer with the idea of passing on Manhattan Project secrets to the Soviet Union. Oppenheimer did not report this event to his superiors for many months and, when he did, described the events dishonestly, i.e., by omitting both himself and Chevalier from the story. Rather than steer clear of someone petitioning him to commit espionage, Oppenheimer continued to see Chevalier socially for years.
Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. Blame yourselves. You elected them.
-- Plato, Republic, I, 346f.
